Sydney: My Australian Dining Destination

Born and bred and living in Sydney, I’m proud to be Australian. This is an exciting time in my hometown where life is enriched with a wide variety of fresh local produce on our doorstep. Our cuisine is rich and varied, and although I’ve travelled the world to broaden my dining experience, it’s always a pleasure to ‘eat at home’ where I have some of the world’s best restaurants at the tip of ‘my knife and fork’.

Earlier this week in the lead up to Crave Sydney, I was invited to Quay restaurant for the launch of new partnership between a group of Sydney’s leading restaurants and the NSW Government to promote Sydney as Australia’s premier restaurant and fine dining destination.

Minister for Tourism, Jodi McKay said the launch of this innovative partnership comes in the lead up to the inaugral Crave Sydney (which starts tomorrow Thursday 1 October).

“Crave Sydney is a festival built around food, the arts and outdoor events, and will open up Sydney’s beautiful harbour islands to the public for concerts, dances, picnic and exhibitions,” Ms McKay said.

“The number of high profile international and national food and wine writers in town for Crave Sydney will provide a perfect opportunity to showcase the depth, diversity and creativity of some of Sydney’s best restaurants involved in this innovative new partnership.”

Ms McKay said Crave Sydney, which will run for the month of October will draw together events such as the Sydney International Food Festival, a Night Noodle Market in Hyde park, Breakfast on the Bridge and a range of fine dining events that celebrate Sydney’s amazing food culture.

I’m excited! I’ve got a busy calendar for the month, starting with Hats off event ‘Future food, future wine’ where one of my food heroes, and our foundation father of Australian fine dining, Tony Bilson, will take me on a five course degustation using ethical sensitivity when sourcing local ingredients.

Let’s do lunch, brunch and dinner.

There’s a number of ‘special dinners’ including The Hunter Gatherer Dinner Club. They’re dedicated to proving that 21^st century urbanized humans are still hunter/gatherers at heart, sourcing our food in a raw state, then cooking or preserving it. I like this premise! This is a moveable daytime feast from some of our best: Tim Pak Poy, Peter Kuruvita, Stefano Manfredi, Damien Pignolet and Belinda Franks.

Sebastian Bras (his restaurant is ranked seventh in the 2009 S.Pelligrino Top 50 Restuarants list and arguably the most highly regarded in France) is cooking for one night only at Quay.

There’s ‘Taste and talk’ ‘In your neighbourhood’ ‘Cocktails’ ‘Dinners of the world’ ‘Shoot the chef’ “Festivals and street fair’ and more.

As a True Food Australia advocate, and having embarked on a 100 mile food challenge earlier this year, I’m pleased to support events that are ‘Green and sustainable’ and ‘100miles of meals” programmed in the latter part of the month.

There are many more tasty events. Please join us in Sydney www.cravesydney.com